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Designer Ireland: No 274: St Patricks Day cards

After years of decline in Irish philatelic design, things are looking up. The recent set of stamps celebrating Irish women artists was well conceived, and this year’s St Patrick’s Day stamp is highly appropriate — it is of a stained glass window, and the small spots of colour give a jewel-like feeling to the stamp.

Once again, An Post have issued a series of postage-paid greeting cards and postcards. These have been a great commercial success but, in design terms, they’ve been more uneven and this year is no different. Two of the cards are by celebrities and three by students. The latter are fine if a little unoriginal, but the others are utterly puzzling in what they seem to express about Irish culture.

One, by the painter Graham Knuttel features two of his characteristic shady-looking characters. One carries a briefcase with a lucky horseshoe motif, and looks as if he